


Fragile God

by harehi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Village God Oikawa Tooru, Villager Iwaizumi Hajime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 02:24:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5230322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harehi/pseuds/harehi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His sister is sick with the plague, and despite his lack in faith, he seeks out his village’s god who has been unresponsive to his pleas for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fragile God

**Author's Note:**

> Written during my exams in an attempt to aggressively procrastinate from cramming :')

Iwaizumi, unlike everyone else in his village, did not believe in a god that would always watch over them. He did not believe that if they stood firm in their faith for this god, that they would then be blessed with an eternal protection.

He was a soldier, but also a scholar. Set apart from the other villagers, he valued reading and writing. In the older textbooks he had read, the forgotten words held in their village’s storage of books had always weaved stories of gods easily angered, gods betraying their worshipers on a whim, gods who punished their people.

And so he was not a believer in a forever just and loving god.

But he was here now, in spite of his own beliefs, venturing out from the safety of his village and into what his people had coined as ‘god’s land’, a terrain which was unpredictable to their own mundane one.

Almost as if by some sort of magic, the flowers bloomed quickly despite cold seasons, the trees towered higher and higher as if to grasp the heavens and its bright, shining eye, and the animals sang a pleasant chorus of sounds on the _good days_.

But there were also _bad days_ , when the flowers grew thorns and turned a poisonous purple, when the trees seemed to loom over the village, branches like a spider web, the animals scuffling and hissing and fighting, when the weather was grey - though the haunt of the forest could come about even on the days when the village was illuminated by golden rays of sun.

But today was one of the bad days with the grey skies overhead.

Iwaizumi had read that during these ‘bad days’, the gods were at their weakest, easily distracted, _easily found_ ; the villagers had not chanced the finding of their god in fear of upsetting him further and inspiring his betrayal.

But Iwaizumi did not care for ‘his’ god’s reaction. He cared for his little sister, inflicted with the plague, isolated from everyone due to her sickness. Despite his attendance at worship, despite the hunted animal sacrifices he’d made to the god, in an attempt to acquire his help - his sister remained sick, and worsened with each day.

Iwaizumi had tried to appease to the god’s good graces the nice way, but he needed his sister healed _now,_ before she worsened to the point that the village doctors refused to see her, that they’d refuse _him_ of seeing her, in fear of the plaque claiming anyone else.

He pushed past the greying greenery, stepped over the slithering roots coming up from the grass, avoided the big purple flowers, blooming with poison in their petals.

He could see, in the sky, that a little further ahead, the clouds were more thick with grey and rain, threatening to storm and thunder.

If Iwaizumi had researched what he knew correctly, then their god would be there. Weather, after all, was a dictation of a god’s feelings and moods.

Going on further, Iwaizumi paused at what he saw before him as he ducked under a large swaying tree branch, dangling from its body in a twisted, unnatural way.

Before him, was a small field of those purple flowers, of those thorns, of those snapping, slithering roots, tree branches reaching toward the figure in the middle, like haunting fingers ready to grasp and grab and snag.

The figure was hunched over, on the ground, sitting. There was defeat about him, a haunt which Iwaizumi had not seen before. He instinctively took a step back, intimidated by the unstable, disturbing power which lingered in this god’s air.

But the slight movement of the god’s head stopped him, as eyes, brown, but dulling as the trees of the forest, pierced him, past the brown hair which swept out from the god’s head with a wreath of gold leaves atop it, which, unlike the rest of the forest, still shone brightly, still remarked that this figure was _a god_.

“ _Iwaizumi Hajime._ ” The god spoke, and a shiver - whether at his own reverence or fear of something unsettling, Iwaizumi did not know - ran down his spine.

“ _So you’ve come to me, about your sister._ ”

The god’s long legs were folded on the ground, and appeared to make him smaller. His shoulders, which Iwaizumi could see were broad and strong, were slumped and instead appeared minuscule and weak. The grey of the sky, and the greying of the god’s eyes made him appear _fragile_.

Iwaizumi swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. _This_ was a god…?

The god reached over, and, with his long fingers, plucked one of the purple flowers from the stem; a black liquid leaked from it, but the god did not seem to mind as it dripped onto him, staining the white of his clothes.

“ _Indeed I am a god_ ,” he said and Iwaizumi wondered quickly ‘Can he read minds?’, “ _and I am afraid I may not be, soon anymore.”_ There was a bitterness to the god’s expression, “ _I am not what I once was. My worshipers are abandoning me for a greater god. I am being forgotten_.”

“But my village - ” Iwaizumi tried, voice thick with his intimidation of the god’s sullen expression, somehow wanting to try to convince this god of his village’s worship for him.

“ _Are losing faith in me_.” The god finished for him. “ _Your sacrifices no longer go to me, but to another god in Shiratorizawa_. _Despite that, it is I who had received_ your _prayers,_ your _sacrifice,_ _your_ _worship, Iwaizumi, and I… I have tried to heal your sister countless times, but I no longer have the strength to do so. You should move on to this greater god - he will grant you your prayers over me_.”

Iwaizumi was never good at dealing with delicate situations and had always opted for brute honesty rather than a prettily disguised comfort to a harsh reality, and the fact that this god was bending down over himself and beating himself up because of the distrust he had cultivated within himself, _of_ himself, Iwaizumi was not pleased.

_This_ was the god that his village had worshipped? The god who his _parents_ had told to him countless gracious and awe-inspiring tales about? The god whom they had worshipped and had prayed to before they had died?He felt an anger start to stir within him, felt the nails of his fingers dig into his palm in the fist his hand was gripped in.

He took a strong step forwards, suddenly filled with an indescribable and powerful intent, and it was as if the winds were in his feet, causing small tremors in the spindled leaves of the twisting trees, causing shivers in the slithering roots, making the purple petals of the flowers shake.

In the back of his head, he briefly thought, _‘I’m stepping on holy ground_ ’, generally a circle of ground within the god's land which only the gods were permitted to reside on; and yet, somehow, he was able to go forth.

The god suddenly looked up at _him_ with wide, brown eyes.

Iwaizumi moved forward slowly, steps growing stronger, as if he were overpowering an other-worldly force.

“My parents,” he said, above the sudden wind, “worshipped _you_.” His voice was a near growl from his anger, “I am my mother’s son, and my father’s son, and _you_ ,” Iwaizumi said strongly, voice carrying despite the whipping howls in the air, as he finally stood before the god, the trees and the flowers and the roots blown away at the force behind his intent until there was only the god, slumped, on the ground, still staring at up at him in a surprised wonder as the roaring winds died down, “Oikawa Tooru, are my sister’s god, and _mine_.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! Here's my [tumblr](http://www.harehi.tumblr.com)


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